Bing For A Month - a Bingathon.

httpwebwitch

6:03 am on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

I realize I haven't been giving the new kid fair time in my browser. I've been typing g o o... to search for so long and so often, my fingers do it without thinking. Well, I don't like doing things without thinking, and I've been thinking, why not see what it would be like to try Bing for a month?

The times I've used Bing, it seems pretty good. But really how good is it?

So, For the entire month of December, I will do all my searching at Bing. How will this change my search habits, and my experience of the web? Will I find what I need to find?

Anyone want to join me for a month-long Bingathon?

This is NOT a sponsored endorsement of Bing. Honest. Microsoft does not own me

bill

6:08 am on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

I've actually got several machines that have been set to Bing as default. In a lot of cases I'd have to say that I prefer the Bing results. When searching with Google you almost always know what you're going to get. Bing opens up another bit of the web that hardly sees the light of day on Google.

So December is Bing month? I'm game.

incrediBILL

6:51 am on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

Bingathon?

I'm game.

Except I can't wait a month, I'm using it for the entire month of November!

Besides, I'm sick to death of seeing Wikipedia and other lame default results dominate the answers every time I search.

This could be fun!

Receptional

12:07 pm on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

Great plan. I'm on board. My family are already using Bing by default and don't really notice the difference. I've also taken the Google searchbox off of my browser... just in case I get lazy... putting a Bing alternative in there.

dertyfern

12:31 pm on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm in as well...must break the goog habit.

dpd1

7:11 pm on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

Sounds like a good idea... I just checked numerous pertinent keywords, and my ranking on Bing is actually better than Google. So I'm happy.

ken_b

7:31 pm on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

So.... who has put a Bing Search box on their website?

celgins

11:57 pm on Nov 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

I started testing Bing as soon as it was released. My computer at work has Bing as the default search engine.

Search results in Bing, in my opinion, are comparable to Google.

D_Blackwell

3:07 am on Nov 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm in. I've been using bing here and there (but not really giving it a fair shake in testing because going to Google is so automatic) and have been reasonably impressed. Enough so that it merits a full month of bing only searching (and then using Google as back-up if needed).

Love the home page design approach, and like the results. So far, I put it on a par with Google, and it deserves a heavy-duty, month-long workout to see where it is truly stronger or weaker.

StoutFiles

3:14 am on Nov 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

Just shows how hard it'll be to beat Google...people here have to force themselves to stop the instinctive typing of Google.

D_Blackwell

3:29 am on Nov 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I keep only five engines in my search box (FF), including Google and WebmasterWorld. Just added the 'official' bing search engine option so that will make it easy to start the test and stick to it. ...........................

My one knock thus far has been that image searches have no information without hovering over them, and the response is slooow. The popup enlargement has always struck me as a bit pointless and I like to see the website location at a glance - without this hover business. The results seem okay, but I hate the implementation on that.

tangor

3:41 am on Nov 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I've been using Bing as default for quite some time. Generally happy with the results. When I have duplicated search with goog just to see if there was something else Bing might have missed, the G rarely had more than one or two different... and they weren't anymore relevant than the others found.

vordmeister

5:07 pm on Nov 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

I've joined in the bingathon today. Couldn't reach google.co.uk for much of the afternoon so I switched my homepage to bing.

Only two observations so far:

1/ Results seem quite similar on the whole. 2/ If you are searching for info about php and if statements then google still wins. Bing confuses them with the word "if". 3/ I love the pretty pictures on Bing.

Sorry, that was 3 things, but I wanted to mention the pictures.

dertyfern

11:48 am on Nov 12, 2009 (gmt 0)

As a follow up: I think that Bing results are fairly good for the most part, but I'm really finding it tough to remember to use it!

It's ridiculous how ingrained Google is on my mouse hand!

Just went to spell check "ingrained" with Bing...no "did you mean". Had to go to Google to check. Handy little feature Bing needs to introduce.

bill

7:27 am on Dec 2, 2009 (gmt 0)

I almost forgot about this. It's December! Time to switch my browsers over.

makemetop

9:31 am on Dec 2, 2009 (gmt 0)

I switched a week ago. Google now is back up search and have used it only once so far to see if I could find something obscure I couldn't find on Bing. I couldn't - so it was really obscure! But the suggestions were better on Bing for alternative searches than Google's somewhat bizarre suggestions.

smallcompany

4:45 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

Bing Ming Ting Wing - I'm in.

gosman

5:04 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

Never thought I'd say this but Bing is definitely the better search engine at the moment. Game on.

fargo1999

5:22 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I've switched my wife's computer to Bing on all browsers to be default and it's been like 4 months now and she still didn't notice. So I assume Bing passed the test of an average computer user. :

Gomvents

5:32 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

we've been using Bing a lot around here as well... looks like a winner to me!

callivert

5:55 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

model numbers for appliances, downloadable manuals, drivers, etc... google wins. I do this kind of search only a few times a year but when I need it, I really need it!

Jane_Doe

6:20 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

Search results in Bing, in my opinion, are comparable to Google.

That's the problem they are up against. They have to give people more of a reason to switch than to just be as good.

I think they should consider dropping all of the ehow type sites and their brethren. That just might give them the edge they need over Google.

zuko105

6:31 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

In

Asia_Expat

6:54 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm late into this thread but I've already been playing. Bing is a clear winner IMO. In my Analytics, I'm only seeing 2-3 percent of traffic from Bing, but it's FAR better quality traffic than Google...

Now some people might be reading this and saying 'Yeah yeah Asia_Expat, you're just seeing what you want to see because you'd love to see Google fall from it's perch'...

Well, yes I would like to see Google lose it's unhealthy monopoly... but I really do think Bing is the better search engine... and the traffic it sends me really is the better quality traffic.

IanCP

7:01 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I think I'll stick with Google. For 99.9% of the time I get what I want within seconds on the first page from my toolbar.

If it ain't broke...

yaix2

7:48 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm in. Chrome's homepage and default search set to Bing.

joelgreen

8:19 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

So it looks like too many people joined your game httpwebwitch. Bing went down Dec.03 :)))